bluesinateacup

Confession is good for the soul. At least that’s what they say. So I’ll get this off my chest now. From time to time I’ve made provocative comments on Facebook. Lit the blue touch paper. Retired to a safe distance. Watched the ensuing discussion heat up. Sometimes I’ve even lobbed in the odd grenade to keep things on the boil. After all, I have strong views on a number of subjects. You’ll probably have noticed that by now if you’ve read this blog even occasionally. So I see no harm in challenging myself to defend them from time to time.

People who live in glass houses and all that. My confession leaves me without a leg to stand on when it comes to criticising Daniel Jones. He did exactly the same thing in a report about Subway cutting out ham in some of its branches on the front page of the Sun newspaper on Wednesday last week. I use the word ‘newspaper’ loosely, as you’ll see. I overheard the first murmurings of outrage while I was enjoying the sunshine on Saturday afternoon. Seriously? Boko Haram kidnap over 200 schoolgirls. Rape them. Threaten to sell them as slaves. And you’re getting hot under the collar about whether Subway sells ham? I thought no more of it until he lobbed in the grenade about Pizza Express chicken on this Wednesday’s front page.

Is it a slow news week at the Sun? If so I suggest they send their reporters further afield. In search of some real news. Preferably something that hasn’t been in the public domain for at least six months. Surely the criterion for ‘news’ is that it should be … well, ‘new’? Of course none of this is really about news. It’s about getting a reaction. Selling more papers. Making a profit. And if on the way we inflame a little hatred. Fear. Division. Well, that’s all to the good. It’ll sell even more papers.

To be frank I’m struggling to understand why the average carnivorous Brit is in the least concerned about this issue. Halal isn’t some kind of voodoo. It simply means permissible in Arabic. The original intention of the ritual was to give dignity and blessing to the animal at the time of its death. To ensure that it died with the minimum of suffering, given the facilities available for slaughter back in the day. Is that such a terrible thing? According to Tesco, the only difference between the halal meat it sells and other meat is it was blessed as it was killed. To be honest, if I was going to die an unpleasant and untimely death, the method of blessing would be the least of my worries. In the general state of the meat industry in the UK, it should be the least of anyone’s.

Until the Sun weighed in, most of us had never given a thought to what had happened to the chicken on our pizzas before we stuffed it into our mouths. If we had, we probably wouldn’t have eaten it. The average broiler lives a short and painful life. Its accommodation so cramped it’s unable to run, flap its wings or exercise most of its natural behaviours. The RSPCA says the majority of British meat chickens are reared to standards we believe are not good enough in terms of animal welfare. To add insult to injury, it usually ends its life shackled upside down on a conveyor belt with its head in a bath of electrified water. Most of us manage to avoid inconvenient truths like this. I’ve been as guilty as anyone. The more so. I knew what the issues were. I chose to ignore them. Not any more. At least I can thank Mr Jones for that. So can a fair few chickens over the remainder of my lifetime.

What frightens me though is the knee-jerk reaction I’m beginning to see to the word ‘Muslim’ in the midst of all this. Certain sectors of the media seem to delight in exploiting this. The Daily Mail has jumped on the bandwagon today. Whipping up hysteria, with very little thought for the consequences. Millions Eating Halal Food Without Knowing. Horse meat was one thing. Not for the horses of course. This is something else. I’m not old enough to remember World War II. I am old enough to have grown up in its shadow. One of the things I learned about was the way propaganda was used to turn a whole nation against a small ethnic and religious minority. Seeing shades of this in the UK today frankly scares the hell out of me.

I hate to leave a post on a negative note. I know I’m an old hippie. A hopeless dreamer. But I really do believe love and compassion will win the day. In the end. Our common humanity is so much more than our cultural or religious practices. Perhaps we all need to take a step back. Remind ourselves of the golden rule. Treat others the way we wish to be treated ourselves. Regardless of religion. Ethnicity.  Or anything else that makes us think ‘they’ are not like ‘us’.

I’m blogging to raise funds for a charity close to my heart. I’ve given up NOT being a writer for 125 days in support of One25’s work with vulnerable women in Bristol. If you’ve enjoyed reading this, you can find out more about what I’m doing by visiting One25’s website at http://www.one25.org.uk/. You can also support them by visiting my fund raising page at http://uk.virginmoneygiving.com/fundraiser-web/fundraiser/showFundraiserProfilePage.action?userUrl=JeanMutch where you can make a donation and suggest an idea for a short story or a post on the blog. Thank you.

Sitting down at ten past nine in the evening to start writing five hundred words after a day like today is probably not the most sensible thing I’ve ever done. But I suppose ‘sensible’ never was one of my favourite adjectives. Google it for a moment. You’ll find a string of sleep-inducing synonyms. Practical. Realistic. Balanced. Sober. Serious-minded. Level-headed. Very few of which could be applied to a woman who decided to bring her new vacuum cleaner home by bus this morning, in order to save a delivery charge of £3.95.

Truth is, all that reasonable, pragmatic stuff’s missing from my genetic make-up. I wasn’t at the back of the queue when it was handed out. I didn’t even know the queue was there. As a result, I’ve had a lifetime of people looking at me oddly. Saying you’re very brave. In a tone that means you’re stark raving mad. Shaking their heads. Just the way the woman in Argos did this morning, when I told her I was taking Hetty home on the bus.

Of course the best thing about growing older is I have the perfect excuse. Can’t expect sound, logical, no-nonsense behaviour from a woman in her dotage. If you can’t be a bit bonkers when you get to my age, when can you? I did the wise, prudent, mature stuff in my thirties and forties. At least to the best of my ability. Time to kick over the traces. Live a little. Start wearing purple. Before it’s too late.

To be honest, the older I get, the more I doubt the wisdom of circumspection. Why toe the line? Keep your head below the barricade? What’s wrong with being different? Does it matter what people think? I’m not about to ride roughshod over anyone. That’s not my style. But when the only things that stand between me and walking on fire are fear of the unknown and worry about others’ opinions, it’s time to get a grip.

Fear’s the thing isn’t it. The worst thing in the world. It controls us. Keeps us in line. It’s purveyed subtly by advertisers. Do you measure up? Will the woman / man of your dreams reject you if you don’t own this? Are you letting your children down by not buying this? Less subtly by newspapers and politicians. Telling us the country’s going to the dogs. I’ve just checked Google for random examples of headlines. The first word I turned up was ‘beware’.

At a personal level, fear tells me what I want is impractical. Unrealistic. Irresponsible. Following my heart is unreasonable. Irrational. Unbalanced. Fear tells me I’ll fail. I’ll look stupid. People will hate me. It makes me behave practically. Pragmatically. Prudently. Fear makes me sensible. Sensible of risk. Sensible of danger.

I love the English language. It has a wonderful way of standing things on their heads. Suddenly sensible kicks back.  Thumbs its nose at chary. Staid. Soporific. Because it also means aware. Conscious. Mindful. Alive. I can be sensible of beauty. Magic. The presence of God. I can be sensible of your needs. Desires. Deepest longings. Just so long as I never become insensible. Callous. Indifferent.

And now, if you’ll excuse me, I’m sensible that it’s almost one in the morning. Which is definitely not a sensible time to be writing about being sensible …

I’m blogging to raise funds for a charity close to my heart. I’ve given up NOT being a writer for 125 days in support of One25’s work with vulnerable women in Bristol. If you’ve enjoyed reading this, you can find out more about what I’m doing by visiting One25’s website at http://www.one25.org.uk/. You can also support them by visiting my fund raising page at http://uk.virginmoneygiving.com/fundraiser-web/fundraiser/showFundraiserProfilePage.action?userUrl=JeanMutch where you can make a donation and suggest an idea for a short story or a post on the blog. Thank you.

OK. I admit it. There may just be one or two items I don’t really need in my flat. To be honest, subtle hints have been dropped by visitors from time to time. Do you really need so many books? So, how long is it going to take to knit up all that wool? Mum, you’ve got too much stuff. Maybe subtle wasn’t the right adjective …

As I keep telling people, if I had a normal-sized house, none of this would be a problem. But the truth is, I live in a one-bedroom flat, and not a very big one. Were it not for the hall cupboard my living room would look like something out of The Hoarder Next Door. As it is, most of the contents of said cupboard are inaccessible. Who knows what might be skulking in the dark recesses? My daughter called me this afternoon to ask if I had a saw, and I had to admit I didn’t know. If I’m honest, it would have taken me several hours to find out. I rest my case m’lud.

I could come up with any number of excellent explanations for my behaviour. After all, I was born less than ten years after the end of the war. There were shortages back then, and nobody got rid of anything. It might come in handy. I was brought up to be frugal. Repair. Re-use. Recycle. Don’t throw it out. Fix it. And it’s so much more eco-friendly … I’ve no doubt this principle can work. But there are limits. One friend recently unearthed two tins of wartime powdered eggs in the back of her mother’s larder. Another’s grandmother kept a hoard of twenty-year-old loose tea ‘in case of emergencies’. It would have created a few emergencies of its own if anyone had tried drinking it. Yet another remembers how his mother used to iron and fold paper bags before adding them to her stash. My own parents had so many empty ice cream tubs in the garage they had to park the car on the driveway.

It’s OK. I haven’t reached that stage. Yet. The difference is most of my stuff is useful, you see. I’m actually going to wear all those trousers some day. No, really I am. I just need to lose a few pounds … And the carrier bags? Well, I can’t just throw them away can I? I mean they’d only end up in a landfill somewhere. Anyway I’m going to use them. Every last one. Honest. You’re not buying it are you? Neither am I.

I’ve been doing a lot of research online since the blog started. Did you know you can hoard electronically these days? Over the past few weeks I’ve built up such a collection of bookmarked web pages it’s becoming hard to find anything I actually want to read in the midst of it. Be that as it may, there’s some fascinating reading out there. Among the gems I’ve turned up by clicking on links is a book called Buddhist Boot Camp. Don’t worry, it’s not gathering dust. It’s on the Kindle.  Yes, you can hoard on a Kindle too, but at least it doesn’t take up as much space … I’ve just started reading it. In a chapter called Less is More, the author talks about becoming minimalist. His dad once stayed a few weeks with him, to try to understand how he lived without the material clutter most of us believe we need. He ends the chapter with a quote from his dad. You don’t have anything, yet there is nothing missing from your life.

That grabbed my attention. I don’t consider myself particularly wealthy, and compared to most of my friends I’m not. But as I’ve already confessed, I do own an immense amount of ‘stuff’. Over the years I’ve come to take for granted things I couldn’t even have imagined in the past. The machine I’m working on now, for instance. I’ve begun to believe I need all those shoes. Clothes. Books. CDs. I’ve allowed myself to be influenced by a culture of materialism. There’s a sense that owning the latest gadget, the most beautiful dress, or the book everyone’s talking about will actually make me happy.  I’ll be a better person. More attractive. Lovable. Socially acceptable. It’s a very subtle poison, that feeds on our discontent, luring us onward with vague promises. If onlies. Only to leave us disappointed, time and again.

Because let me tell you now, far from material bliss, I’ve ended up with a stack of obsolete belongings. They’re creeping out of cupboards and spilling across floors. They need to be to be folded, stacked, reorganised, dusted, washed and protected. They get in the way of everything I do.  They absorb my time, energy and effort. Distract me. Disturb me. Draw my attention away from everything that makes life worth the living. I can stand that earlier quote on its head. I have everything, yet there is something fundamental missing from my life.

The theme of minimalism is not unique to Buddhism of course. It’s a thread that runs throughout spiritual thought. Jesus wouldn’t recognise the greed and materialism we take for granted. They have no connection with any of his teachings, much though we like to imagine that capitalism is somehow rooted in Christian values. The man who said sell your possessions and give to the poor has more in common with Buddhist Boot Camp than with our culture of accumulation.

So today’s post is by way of announcement that I want to do things differently.  I’m trying to dance to a different drum. I want shift the stuff. Minimise. De-clutter. Simplify. Reconnect with the spiritual. It’s going to be a fight. I know that already. I’m going to need all the help I can get. But it’s going to be worth it. So if you’re reading this, please feel free to prod me. Remind me. Leave a comment on Facebook from time to time, asking how much stuff I’ve managed to get rid of. Or better still, share your own experience from the journey. Because there really is a better way.

Sell your possessions and give to the poor.

Provide purses for yourselves that will not wear out,

a treasure in heaven that will not be exhausted,

where no thief comes near and no moth destroys.

For where your treasure is, there your heart will be also.

Luke 12 v 33-34

I’m blogging to raise funds for a charity close to my heart. I’ve given up NOT being a writer for 125 days in support of One25’s work with vulnerable women in Bristol. If you’ve enjoyed reading this, you can find out more about what I’m doing by visiting One25’s website at http://www.one25.org.uk/. You can also support them by visiting my fund raising page at http://uk.virginmoneygiving.com/fundraiser-web/fundraiser/showFundraiserProfilePage.action?userUrl=JeanMutch where you can make a donation and suggest an idea for a short story or a post on the blog. Thank you.

At the risk of repeating myself, one of the things I love best about living in a city is its diversity. For some unfathomable reason, my bank manager won’t let me book that round-the-world ticket, so I’ve settled in a place where I can see as much of the world as possible with the minimum of outlay, and on a job that gives me the opportunity to talk to people from a huge range of cultures. I just find people infinitely fascinating. Maybe it’s my way to rebel against my upbringing. In 1960s England ‘our way’ was ‘the right way’, and everyone else was ‘wrong’. It was unquestionable. Boys wore short trousers, even in blizzards. Tea and coffee were drunk from cups, with saucers. Potatoes were peeled in ice cold water, regardless of chapped hands and chilblains. Bread was buttered and cut in triangles. And of course, denim jeans were worn only by dustmen. My mother was so worried about what people would think that both she and my brother missed a church picnic because said brother refused to take off his new baseball boots and put on ‘proper shoes’.

Keeping up appearances was crucial in late twentieth century England. It still is now, of course, although in very different ways. We have a whole new set of criteria for social acceptance now. Gone are the days of politeness, consideration and respect, which last I’ve always taken to mean treating others the way you would like them to treat you, rather than servility.  Instead we have greed, competition, physical attractiveness and wearing the right labels on one’s clothes. Who’d have thought they’d ever become virtues? It seems we’re programmed to follow. We don’t like to stand out in a crowd, and we’re hopelessly suspicious of anything or anyone ‘different’. Our criteria for ‘different’ have changed, but our aversion to it hasn’t.

Change. Now there’s another thing we don’t like. Change is one of the only certainties this side of the next world, apart from death and taxes, and we don’t like them much either. I sometimes think I’d love to go back to the way things were when I was nineteen. I wouldn’t. I’d just like to be nineteen again, only this time with all the wisdom of hindsight. I don’t want to give up my laptop, my blog, my central heating, or the progress we’ve made toward gender equality, however theoretical the last may remain. I wouldn’t want to go back to a world full of irrational discrimination, on the grounds of gender, ethnicity, skin colour, sexuality or disability. A world where Jimmy Saville could roam unfettered and Enoch Powell could spew poison without sanction. A time when it had only recently ceased to be a criminal offence for two men to love each other, and where I could be told there was no point in my applying for promotion at work because I was married. That wasn’t freedom. That was a licence for the powerful and privileged to run roughshod over the rest of us.

Yet the more I look around me, the more I see people yearning for ‘the good old days’. People hanker after a strange, mythical past in which we all knew where we stood, even if that was right up to our necks in a heap of something very nasty. My Facebook feed has seen a steadily increasing flow of posts about extreme elements in British politics. People who preach hatred and inflame prejudice, whilst masquerading as saviours of the nation. It seems to me that these people seek to divide us against ourselves. They set workers of diverse ethnic backgrounds at each other’s throats, pitch ‘strivers’ against ‘skivers’ and whip up prejudice against the poor. They pour suspicion on anyone whose lifestyle deviates from the ‘norm’, as measured by their own standards, of course. They fuel suspicion toward those with disabilities, or different ideas. Anything to distract us from the people who are really taking us to the cleaners. The wealthy one per cent. The wolves.

I’ve avoided mention of any particular political party so far. The article that caught my attention this morning this morning may blow my cover, should you choose to click on the link. I was brought up to believe that my parents’ generation fought a war to prevent a man with views like this from taking over the country, yet people are looking to a political party that can contain Geoffrey Clark, who advocates COMPULSORY abortion for babies who have disabilities, William Henwood, who wants Lenny Henry to ‘go to a black country’, Gerard Batten, who thinks all Muslims should sign a charter rejecting terrorism. Then there’s David Silvester, who enabled us all to breathe a sigh of relief because those floods had nothing to do with climate change, it was all down to same-sex marriage, oh, and Gordon Gillick, who is alleged to have asked a group of young people in care how it felt to be ‘takers’ from the system, as if they had the smallest choice in the matter. Add to that little lot Godfrey Bloom, who thinks I should spend more time cleaning behind my fridge, rather than trouble my pretty little head about politics, and I’m getting worried. Do we really believe things were better when we had less freedom? Do we want a less diverse, less interesting society? Do we see the past through such rose-tinted spectacles that we want to crawl back to it, clinging to a chewed security blanket that was never really the way we imagine it was?

I don’t need to tell you what I think. So I’ll allow a voice from the past to have the last word. With due acknowledgement to my friend Aletheia for posting this on Facebook at exactly the right time.

But if you want money for people with minds that hate,

then all I can tell you is brother you’ll have to wait …

I’m blogging to raise funds for a charity close to my heart. I’ve given up NOT being a writer for 125 days in support of One25’s work with vulnerable women in Bristol. If you’ve enjoyed reading this, you can find out more about what I’m doing by visiting One25’s website at http://www.one25.org.uk/. You can also support them by visiting my fund raising page at http://uk.virginmoneygiving.com/fundraiser-web/fundraiser/showFundraiserProfilePage.action?userUrl=JeanMutch where you can make a donation and suggest an idea for a short story or a post on the blog. Thank you.

Having spent a large part of the last few weeks writing about ‘issues’, I felt the need to try my hand at fiction again. I’ve found the change in writing style surprisingly hard to manage. My internal ‘editor’ has had a field day. However, the bones of a short story have emerged from the fray. I hope you enjoy reading it as much as … or even more than I’ve enjoyed winning the battle to write it.

He’s not here. Four minutes late. What is it with men that they’re never on time? The Idiot was the same. Never less than half an hour. No explanations. Once he turned up on time. I wasn’t ready. He had a go at me. Mad. I’m not waiting. Ten minutes. Tops. If he can’t be bothered it’s not my problem.

The guy on the corner table’s working on a Mac. Typing steadily. Pen behind his ear. Thick book on the table. Hardback. Drawings on the cover. Small. Intricate. In primary colours. Can’t see the title. Is he a writer? Male JK. Writing in a café. That’s how they start, isn’t it? Mac’s a big step up from a scrappy notebook and pen though. Maybe it’s a sequel. Science fiction. Erotic fantasy. He stops from time to time. Looks up. Observes. Seeks inspiration. Hope he’s not writing me into a soft porn extravaganza. Then again. I should be so lucky. Perhaps he’s a spy. Or a snoop from the Benefits Agency. They’d do well round here. I don’t think they give them Macs though.

The Other Idiot used to pretend he had spies out after me. Sent me texts. I know what you’ve been up to. Slag. Didn’t know what he was up to himself. Never mind me. Too pissed. I told him he could put me under 24 hour surveillance. They’d die of boredom watching me. They would have too. My life was that much fun. I already have, he said.

The couple in the window aren’t a couple. They’re comfortable together. Like bedroom slippers. Newspapers. Mail for her. Last night’s Post for him. Coffee. Crosswords. Conversation. Chesty coughs and Kirby grips. Whatever happened to Kirby grips?

Can’t work out the other table. He’s nose deep in a book. She’s picking at a glossy mag. Distracted. Coffee must be cold by now. What’s the point? Wasting all that money? They’ve both got tortoiseshell glasses. Self-conscious. Disconnected. Wishing they were somewhere else. They’re definitely a couple. No doubt of that. Right. Ten minutes is up. I’ll let him have another five. Still got a bit of coffee left. Mr Disconnected snaps shut his book. Mrs D peeks through her tortoiseshell barricade. They both get up to leave. Without a word.

I might have another coffee. Try the chocolate tart. Treat myself. Why not? Don’t know why I thought he’d show. May as well make the most of it now I’m here. Mr Writer-Spy is packing up his Mac. Checking his mobile. Sorry. iPhone. He’s got a beard. Neatly trimmed. Strawberry blond. His seat’s been taken by the time I get back. Balancing fresh coffee. Americano. Frothy milk. Tart. Mahoganied with chocolate. Lascivious. Now there’s a word. Pure indulgence. Better than sex. Chocolate. And as close as I’m going to get.

The new man in the corner has an interesting face. Deep lines. Silver curls. A smile to die for. Zen. Teepees. Barefoot festivals. Roads to Kathmandu. I bet he’s done it all. All the might-have-beens. Irresponsible. Unrealistic. Rose-tinted. Oh, how The Idiot loved to shout those words. Long. Loud. And often. If I had a fiver for every time, I’d be … where would I be? Not sitting here. For sure. Barefoot in the Himalayas. Bronzing on a beach in Goa. I’d have fancied him. Back in the day. He intrigues me. The Silver Fox. Not The Idiot. He never did intriguing. Nor The Other Idiot. Much though he tried.

Mr Writer-Spy-Benefits-Agency-Snoop’s in the passage by the loo. Coffee goes straight through me nowadays. Ladies on the left. The waitress said. He’s on the phone.

“Yes … You’re barking up the wrong tree, mate … No … Nobody … Completely on her own.”

I squeeze by him. His voice drops to an urgent hiss. There are about twenty-five toilet rolls on the shelf in the loo. And I reach for the empty cardboard tube hanging on the wall.

I emerge. Mr W-S-B-A-S skirts around the waitress. Almost sends the debris of my elevenses flying.

“Idiot.” The door bangs. “Scared the life out of me. He was under the table.”

I make the phone call from the mini-market doorway. Withheld number. It’s starting to rain. A maroon taxi pulls up. They all pile into the street. The Couple-That-Aren’t-A-Couple. The Silver Fox. Two women with toddlers. The waitress. The chef. Wiping his hands on a tea towel. There’s a dull roar. A plume of smoke. Breaking glass. The waitress screams. I watch the taxi pull away. Silent. Invisible. Late. That’s the trouble with men. They’re never on time.

Happy Birthday One25 

I’m blogging to raise funds for One25, a charity close to my heart. I’ve given up NOT being a writer for 125 days in support of their work with vulnerable women in Bristol. If you’ve enjoyed reading this, you can find out more about what I’m doing by visiting One25’s website at http://www.one25.org.uk/. You can also support them by visiting my fund raising page at http://uk.virginmoneygiving.com/fundraiser-web/fundraiser/showFundraiserProfilePage.action?userUrl=JeanMutch where you can make a donation and suggest an idea for a short story or a post on the blog.

Today would be a great day to decide to support them, as it’s their 19th birthday!  

Thank you.

I think my view of the writer’s life may have been a little over-romantic in the past. I had wild thoughts of a cottage in the country. The scent of honeysuckle wafting through the perpetually-open front door. A weed-free garden where the sun always shone. Self-polishing antique furniture. A dark green Aga. Kettle singing quietly. Bread baking. A dog slumbering at my feet. A cat curled in the rocking chair. And a steady stream of words flowing onto the page in exactly the right order. No need to edit. No interruptions from phones. Emails. Facebook. No need to work. Eat. Sleep. Go to the toilet …

I imagine it’s like that if you’ve written a couple of bestsellers. Apart from the physical necessities of course. But I’ve plunged into this after more than 50 years’ procrastination. The picture is a little different. It’s more one-bedroom flat. The scent of washing powder wafting from the perpetually-drying laundry. A forest of house plants in need of constant maintenance. I once read that having plants in the room makes you more creative. Does it matter whether they’re alive or not? Dilapidated second-hand furniture. White cooker. Electric kettle … And pets on the second floor? It really isn’t practical. As for the effortless flow of words. Forget it.

The past few days have been the most difficult so far. I’ve come within a whisker of giving up giving up not being a writer. My hand twitches every time I see the TV remote. The armchair’s never looked so good. I’m heading into the Guinness Book of Records for coffee consumption. Everything in me screams that this is a really stupid idea. Who am I trying to kid? I’m too old. It’s far too late to give up not being a writer … I should be in bed for heaven’s sake.

The One25 drop-in was short-staffed this afternoon. I offered to do an extra shift. Drop-in’s an amazing place. I’ll do a longer piece one day, to do it justice. I want to sketch today as a reminder. For myself as much as anyone. After all, it’s the reason I’m sitting here at midnight, bashing away at a keyboard instead of sleeping. In the drop-in, you can get hot food. Home-made cake. A hug. Clean clothes. A shower. A smile. And time to be yourself. It’s an oasis of normal for women whose lives are anything but. A safe space for those who have no safety on the street.

Today we dished up roast chicken. Roast potatoes. Vegetables. Pineapple pudding. We ate together. Discussed the need for more green space in cities. The calming effects of colouring. Some women were sewing. Making curtains. Working on the patchwork quilts they’re making. Fired up with plans to raise money for a new sewing machine. So much creativity and enthusiasm. Some aren’t ready for all that yet of course. But they were there. That’s the first step.

Somehow this afternoon made all the late nights, the existential angst worthwhile. I might never be the next big thing in literary novels. But I spent today with some incredible women. Strong. Determined. Fighting back. Reclaiming their lives. Against the odds.  In the end, that’s what really matters.

I’m blogging to raise funds for One25, a charity close to my heart. I’ve given up NOT being a writer for 125 days in support of their work with vulnerable women in Bristol. If you’ve enjoyed reading this, you can find out more about what I’m doing by visiting One25’s website at http://www.one25.org.uk/. You can also support them by visiting my fund raising page at http://uk.virginmoneygiving.com/fundraiser-web/fundraiser/showFundraiserProfilePage.action?userUrl=JeanMutch where you can make a donation and suggest an idea for a short story or a post on the blog. Thank you.

I don’t know about you. I seem to wake up every morning with a vague sense of having done something wrong. Or not done something right. Even before my feet hit the floor I’m fretting about the text I didn’t send last night. The email I didn’t reply to. That phone call I should have made. And have I got everything in my diary? Or am I going to forget something vital again today? Actually it’s hardly ever happened. But in my head I do it several times a day.

Studies suggest that women may actually feel more guilt than men. Guilt, it’s suggested, is an ‘other-focused’ emotion. We’re brought up to consider ourselves responsible for the welfare of others to a greater extent than men. Thus we’re more likely to experience unreasonable levels of guilt. So, in the interest of redressing the balance, here are a few things I know I shouldn’t feel guilty about. But I do.

Getting up later than I plan to. For some reason I feel guilty about this every single morning. Even when I get up at the right time. I suspect if I set my alarm for 4am and leapt out of bed the moment it went off I’d still manage to find a reason to feel guilty about it. But I’m not planning to test the theory.

Spending money. It’s probably good to be cautious about this in my precarious financial state. But, as anyone who’s been broke for the best part of a lifetime will tell you, feeling bad about money all the time has a flipside. It’s the oh-sod-it-I’m-going-to-feel-bad-whatever-I-do-so-I-might-as-well-go-ahead-and-do-it-anyway effect. This can be lethal in the wrong hands. Mine, for example.

Living in a tip. When I was a little over three years old, my little brothers were born. For a short time after my mother brought them home from hospital we had a home help. She came on Tuesday afternoons. I remember with startling clarity. I sat on the bottom of the stairs after lunch and watched my mother scream round the house like a thing possessed.

“Couldn’t the home help do that?” I ventured at last.

She hurtled by like Roadrunner on speed. Duster in one hand. Carpet sweeper in the other. The hoover was no good. It would have woken the babies. She shot me a withering glance as she passed.

“Of course not, dear. I can’t let her see the house in this state.”

It was my first introduction to housework as performance art.

To this day, my flat only gets a really good going over within an hour of the anticipated arrival of visitors. The rest of the time? Let’s face it. I’m the only person who’s inconvenienced these days by my constant inability to remember where I’ve left anything. I can live with it. Life’s too short for compulsive tidiness. As the sign on the wall in an old friend’s kitchen said, a tidy house is a sign of a wasted life.

Not going to the gym. Confession time. I once belonged to a gym for almost two years. I think I went there on more than one occasion during each of those years. This means I did a lot better than the around 80 % of Americans with gym memberships in a 2009 study. They never actually used the gym at all. I imagine statistics for the UK are similar. Worse still, one study found that 13% of the participants regularly lied, claiming to go to the gym when they were actually somewhere else. Probably somewhere far more interesting.

The truth is I find the gym boring. All that metal and vinyl do nothing for me. And who on earth chooses the music? Any country footpath or city pavement knocks spots off a treadmill. Costs nothing. And you’re actually going to arrive somewhere at the end of it all. I know what you’re thinking. Yes. I could do with a good workout once in a while. But there has to be a better way. More time on the allotment perhaps. Get the bike fixed up. Run to the swimming pool. Join a green gym maybe. My daughter’s a member of GoodGym in Bristol. They run to community projects around the city and help out. A workout with a purpose. As for a conventional gym. I refer you to my previous comment. Life’s too short.

Writing a six-things-I-probably-shouldn’t-feel-guilty-about list for the blog. It’s been a long day. I’d feel really bad if I didn’t manage to write 500 words. Writing to a high literary standard wasn’t part of the deal. There are people out there who actually get paid to write stuff like this. Ergo, my conscience is clear. Well almost …

Drinking red wine. Right now I’d love to be able to wallow about this one. Heaven knows, my parents weren’t teetotal for all those years without teaching me a thing or two about alcohol-related guilt … but I finished the bottle last night. Guess it’s a quick decaff and off to bed then.

“I can’t believe that!” said Alice.

“Can’t you?” the Queen said in a pitying tone. “Try again: draw a long breath, and shut your eyes.”

Alice laughed. “There’s no use trying,” she said. “One can’t believe impossible things.”

“I dare say you haven’t had much practice,” said the Queen. “When I was your age, I always did it for half-an-hour a day. Why, sometimes I’ve believed as many as six impossible things before breakfast! There goes the shawl again.”

Lewis Carroll – Through the Looking Glass

I once knew a man who thought God was a slot machine. All you had to do was keep your nose clean, insert the right prayer and you’d get whatever you wanted. Your bank account of good behaviour had to be in credit, of course. And you had to have enough ‘faith’, which in his world, seemed to me to be a kind of grit-toothed determination to believe things that were blatantly untrue. You could ‘have faith’ for a Rolls Royce. A million pounds. A bungalow in Clacton. You could claim it right now. In fact, it was already yours. You just couldn’t see it. Because you didn’t have enough faith. Or you were harbouring a secret sin. Or maybe because it wasn’t really there …

Now for all I know, the guy’s flying over my head at this very moment in his private jet, en route from his Caribbean island to his mansion in Belgravia. Maybe he did have enough faith after all. In which case, all I can say is, I’m sorry. You were right. I was wrong. And I didn’t want that chateau in the south of France anyway. No, really. I didn’t.

All that was a good few years ago. I like to think he got what he wanted in the end. Whatever it was. Even now, I have to confess to a sneaking admiration for his doggedness. The sheer determination to hold on to a belief that flew in the face of all reason. That has to be some feat. I don’t think I’ve got that level of blinkered persistence. Sheer stubbornness. At least I like to think not. After all, I’m an educated woman. I have more than half a brain. Although there are some who’d argue that point. I learn from my experiences. Quite slowly. But I get there in the end. I don’t have to believe six impossible things before breakfast to stop my world from falling apart. I don’t need that kind of security blanket.

I had no internet connection a while back. I won’t bore you with the details. The events that left me with no income for three weeks are not part of this story. There was a time when I’d have thrown the few toys I had left out of the pram. Ranted about injustice. I need my internet connection. I can’t work without it. Don’t Sky understand that for heaven’s sake? One of my all-time favourite security blankets is the belief that no-one understands how terrible my life has been. Anyone else dragging that one around too? No, I knew you wouldn’t be. I told you so. Nobody understands …

The blanket’s a tad threadbare these days. To be honest it’s worn down to the last few sticky strands twiddled around my thumb. The world’s full of injustice. On a scale of one to really minor, my troubles don’t even put in an appearance. I have a roof over my head. Food in my stomach. An internet connection … most of the time. And nobody hits me, shouts at me or threatens my life these days. Compared to say a Syrian refugee, an AIDS orphan in Uganda, a street sex worker in Bristol my life’s pretty good. It all depends on your point of comparison.

Now this next bit would work so much better if I had a ten pound note … or a twenty … if I grit my teeth and pray … no? Oh well. Not enough faith I guess … I’ll have to do it from memory instead.

‘I promise to pay the bearer on demand the sum of …’ Hmm. So, what exactly does that mean? Where’s my ten pounds? Does it actually exist? Can I see it, please? And if I could, what would it look like?

I’m led to believe that once upon a time there was a real, shiny gold bar in a vault somewhere that equated to my crumpled tenner. Well, my non-existent tenner … maybe if I grit my teeth a little bit harder …? These days, there isn’t even that. My ten pounds exists purely because we all believe it does. Like the Rolls Royce. The million quid. That bungalow in Clacton. Maybe I shouldn’t have given up on the chateau quite so easily.

Money has such incredible power over all our lives. Power of life and death. But at the end of the day it really ain’t worth the paper it’s written on. It doesn’t exist. Literally. And I don’t mean figuratively, for anyone who’s using the insane new browser plug-in designed to eradicate incorrect use of the word ‘literally’.

We all collude in the belief that money is real. It takes on a life of its own. One that radically affects our planet. The lives of seven billion people and counting. The quality of life of every sentient being in creation. Children die of hunger or preventable diseases. Why? Because ‘there isn’t enough money’. Hundreds of species of plants and animals become extinct every year. Why? Because someone can make more money if they’re not there. Nothing is sacred before the great god mammon. I know the analogy is hopelessly inadequate, but I can’t help being reminded of the scene where Peter Pan asks all the children to clap if they believe in fairies. The children do as they’re asked. Tinker Bell lives on to fight another day. Maybe it’s our applause that actually keeps the money god alive.

The truth is, money is our security blanket. It’s five of the six impossible things we have to believe before breakfast every morning to stop the world as we know it from falling apart. To that extent it works for all of us. But it’s a blanket that knits up a whole lot better for Mark Carney or Rupert Murdoch than it does for me or you. A Bolivian street kid. A worker in a Bangladeshi garment factory. A child soldier in the Congo. Perhaps we just don’t have quite enough faith …

So what if we all stopped believing? If we refused to clap our hands? Saw it for the cruel farce it really is? Started to believe that people matter more … Who knows where that might lead?  

You may say I’m a dreamer, but I’m not the only one …

There are mornings when I fall out of bed. Stagger to the laptop clutching my coffee. Get lured into reading something that looks vaguely interesting. Click on a link. And end up wanting to crawl back to bed in tears. Today was one of those days. The trouble with incoherent anger is it’s … well, it’s incoherent. So I’m going to need a good deal of grace and self-control in writing today.

It started innocently enough. A group of eminent non-Christians has written a letter to the Daily Telegraph objecting to David Cameron’s declaration that Britain is a Christian country. Don’t go there I thought. The man’s too easy a target for wrath and despair. It’s Bank Holiday. Just finish what you started last night and be done. But you know what they say about curiosity …

I read on. I found myself nodding in agreement. It is surely divisive to declare Britain a ‘Christian country’. In the 2011 census only 59% of the population declared themselves ‘Christian’. A more specific question in a YouGov survey found only 29% of Britons calling themselves ‘religious’. While a recent survey of religion in G7 countries found only 35% of us believing religion to be a positive influence on society, compared to 29% believing it to have a wholly negative impact. All of which suggests that quite a few of those who self-identified as Christian in the census have no more than a nodding acquaintance with faith.

A year or so ago I was almost mown down by three cyclists. They whizzed past me one after the other at high speed. On the pavement. Temporarily pinned to the wall, I glared at the last as he flew past. He turned round and swore at me. That evening, I took to Facebook to declare my frustration. The internal combustion engine is king. I want to empathise with cyclists. I really do. So why can’t they give me a little respect? A friend responded. 90% of the cyclists in Bristol give the rest of us a bad name. It seems to me that David Cameron and his ilk are at risk of becoming the aggressive exponents of Christianity who give the rest of us a bad name.

Sounds harsh? Mr Cameron once declared his faith to be a bit like the reception for Magic FM in the Chilterns. It sort of comes and goes. Nothing wrong with that. There’s not an honest Christian alive who hasn’t had doubts. Suddenly it seems he wants us to be ‘more evangelical’ about our faith. Odd. He’s at loggerheads with the church, isn’t he? So what’s with the sudden volte face?

People often confuse faith with culture. Nineteenth-century missionaries, complete with pith helmets, famously exported British culture in the name of Christianity. They cleared the ground for a brutal colonial empire. The effects are still being counted around the world today. War. Poverty. Injustice. Genocide. That’s no part of faith in my book. There are modern missionaries who do no better. Exporting the American Dream. Living on a monthly income in excess of the annual wage of those they seek to ‘save’. Driving shiny 4x4s to newly-built churches through streets lined with beggars. This type of evangelism is a witch’s brew of cultural imperialism and overzealous moralism. The kind of mentality that declares ‘we’re right and everyone else is wrong’. It can only end in tears.

On the other hand, there are people who do amazing things because of their faith. Mother Teresa springs to mind. My brother and his wife. They’ve spent more than twenty years transforming the lives of Bolivian street kids. One25 was founded by a Christian. And the Trussell Trust. That nefarious ‘scaremongering’ organisation responsible for undermining the moral fibre of our great nation with its food banks. I have personal experience of all these. Although sadly Mother Teresa was no longer with us by the time I made my only trip to Calcutta. The difference? Simple. These people do what they do out of love. Not because they want to manipulate other people into seeing the world their way.

Here comes the incoherent anger. Call me cynical. A conspiracy theorist. It’s all right. I’ve been called worse. Less than two weeks ago David Cameron held an Easter reception at Downing Street. Among other things, his speech praised faith organisations for setting up food banks. Now, either the man’s had a Damascus road experience or there’s something funny going on …

Enter yesterday’s Mail On Sunday. With a vitriolic attack on food banks.

Now you see why I was spitting nails when I started writing this morning? Talk about manipulation. The people who use food banks are poor beyond the wildest dreams of any Daily Mail reporter. Vulnerable. Desperate. I’m not for one moment suggesting that we’re all saints. Yes. I said ‘we’. I’ve received food from a food bank. I wouldn’t recommend the experience. The gift was given with immense love and grace. I was still reduced to tears of humiliation. I’ve seen a food bank from both sides of the counter. I’m fairly sure one or two of the people who use it are just as dishonest as MPs with their expenses. I’m not condoning the behaviour of the minority. But to rubbish the entire system the way this article does is one of two things. It’s either irredeemably irresponsible journalism. At its absolute worst. Or a cynical attempt by an embattled government to smear its enemy. While carefully trying to appear whiter-than-white. Take your pick.

But the signs are that all has not gone to plan. First came news of a Twitter backlash against the Mail On Sunday. A surge in donations to food banks followed. At the time of writing, the Trussell Trust’s Easter appeal stands at £54,953. After the hammering this morning, my faith in human nature is considerably restored. I’m not naïve enough to imagine we’ve won the war today. But I do believe we’ve scored a small victory. For compassion. For caring. For the human race.

I’m blogging to raise funds for a charity close to my heart. I’ve given up NOT being a writer for 125 days in support of One25’s work with vulnerable women in Bristol. You can find out more about them by visiting their website at http://www.one25.org.uk/. You can also support them by visiting my fund raising page at http://uk.virginmoneygiving.com/fundraiser-web/fundraiser/showFundraiserProfilePage.action?userUrl=JeanMutch where you can make a donation and suggest an idea for a short story or a post on the blog. Thank you.